"Wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether he will not retain as much vitality as the conditions of humanity permit: Will our posterity understand at least why he was once a luminary of the first magnitude, or wonder at their ancestors' hallucination about a mere will-o'-the-wisp? Will some of his best performances stand out like a cathedral amongst ruined hovels, or will they all sink into the dust together, and the outlines of what once charmed the world be traced only by Dryasdust and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... into a passionate cry.] — Your hair, and your big eyes, is it?... I'm telling you there isn't a wisp on any gray mare on the ridge of the world isn't finer than the dirty twist on your head. There isn't two eyes in any starving sow isn't finer than the eyes you were ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... Manchester Insurrection could yet discern no radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared that all lights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hitherto kindled, were but deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog will-o'-wisp lights, and no dayspring from on high: for this also we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augur well of it. A deep unspoken sense lies in these strong men,—inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... heavens, how stupendous must be the extent of the nebula. It would seem almost as if all the other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one, they would not surpass this mighty group, in which every wisp—every wrinkle—is a sand-heap of stars. There are cases in which, though imagination has quailed, reason may still adventure inquiry, and prolong its speculations; but at times we are brought to a limit across which no ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... are the best as they do not cut the shoulder in the same way as webbing. I once hunted a great many London shops in vain for a Rucksack with leather shoulder straps. They all had thin webbing, which soon turns into a wisp and hurts the muscles of the shoulder. The leather straps should finish on a ring at the top which should be attached to the top of the Rucksack by a leather tab firmly sewn on. This is a much safer ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... to Mamma Coupeau; on the opposite sidewalk were Coupeau, Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade. These three wore black frock coats and walked with their arms dangling from their rounded shoulders. Boche wore yellow pantaloons. Bibi-la-Grillade's coat was buttoned to the chin, as he had no vest, and a wisp of a cravat was tied around ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... his own conviction that literature was his destiny; the tripos faded into the background, replaced by the more splendid vision of seeing an accepted article from his pen in a real London magazine; he gave frantic chase to the will o' the wisp of literary fame, which so many pursue all their lives in vain, fortunate if it comes at last to flicker for ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; I have chased it north to the Lizard—ribboned and rolled and torn; I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... His was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crown fall in the dirt," she said, tossing a wisp of hair from her forehead; "but you great, insensible beings are always in mischief when you are in the country. Why don't you stay at home, in your brick cages that stand on heaps of flat stones? You are watched there all the time by creatures with clubs in their leather belts, ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... into a strong sturdy lad. He was the joy of the house, and though of a most loveable disposition, he was like a will-o'-the-wisp, full of fun and life. He spent most of the time out of doors in summer among the birds and flowers. There was hardly a creature in the vicinity of the rectory which he did not know. He found birds' nests in the most unlikely places, and he often caused Parson Dan many a ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... momentarily brightened. One by one the stars in the deep-blue sky paled and went out and the blue dome changed and lightened. Night had vanished on invisible wings and silence broke to the music of a mockingbird. The rose in the east deepened; a wisp of cloud turned gold; dim distant mountains showed dark against the red; and low down in a notch a rim of fire appeared. Over the soft ridges and valleys crept a wondrous transfiguration. It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... two pounds of round steak into small dice, rejecting all skin and fat. Put it into a glass fruit jar with one cup of cold water. Cover the can sufficiently tight to prevent any water from boiling in, and place it on a wisp of straw or a muffin ring in a kettle of cold water. Heat very gradually, and keep it just below the boiling point for two or more hours; or, place the can in a deep dish of hot water, and cook in a moderate ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... of the statue, or in the material of clay, as being a better medium of expression than even marble; but certainly I have seldom been more impressed by a piece of modern sculpture. Miss Hosmer showed us photographs of her Puck—which I have seen in the marble—and likewise of the Will-o'-the-Wisp, both very pretty and fanciful. It indicates much variety of power, that Zenobia should be the sister of these, which would seem the more natural offspring of her quick and vivid character. But Zenobia ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to use a conveniently erroneous phrase, the variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram or the hexadactyle members ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... of being seen through the thickest of glasses. His lank, grayish hair, of no particular color, but resembling autumnal roadside grasses, hung thinly from a high and asymmetrical head, and straggled dejectedly down into a wisp of beard on chin and lip—a beard which any absent-minded man might well be supposed to have failed to observe, and therefore to have neglected to shave. When Madame le Claire stopped in leading him forward, he ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... she had only asked whether any life was worth living for a woman who had neither husband nor children. Was the family all that life had to offer? could she find no interest outside the household? And so, led by this will-of-the-wisp, she had, with her eyes open, walked into the quagmire of politics, in spite of remonstrance, in spite ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... didn't like it; for Luly seemed to be a nice little girl, and playful as a little kitty. She was always laughing, singing, and dancing—now in at one door, and now out at the other, like a will-o'-the-wisp, or a jack-o'-lantern. Why on earth they didn't like Luly, I couldn't see. Being an old maid, of course I couldn't rest easy till I found out the reason of this; and I soon did it, as you'll see, if you read on to the end of ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... steamer was on the yellow waters of the Congo, and the boys forgot even about the strange couple in their first view of the mighty river; but the sight of a native-manned canoe, shooting out from the mist which hung in wisp over the waters, recalled the incident. They found Mr. Hume in an easy-chair, drinking his early morning cup of coffee, and at his feet, stretching along the scuppers, was the canoe, still with its crew aboard and asleep, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and that wearied, and in an execution full of uncertain touch and painful effort. Unless the painter is especially endowed with the instinct of anatomies, the sentiment of proportion, and a passion for form, the nude is a will-o'-the-wisp, whose way leads where he may not follow. No one suspects Mr. Watts of one of these qualifications; he appears even to think them of but slight value, and his quest of the allegorical seems to be merely motived by an ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... what you did, sir," said she, through her diminishing tears. She was a slight wisp of a girl, a ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of the elves is nearly the same As the terrible fate of men; To love, to rue, to be, and pursue A flickering wisp of the fen. We must play the game with a careless smile, Though there's nothing in the hand; We must toil as if it were worth our while Spinning our ropes of sand; And laugh, and cry, and live, and die At the waft of an ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... down Waverley Street, I after him, and suddenly disappeared among the old gray walls of the university. I went in, walked all through the halls, made a dozen inquiries, but in vain. I reckon he is a will-o'the-wisp." ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... not write, although there were several on that long journey in such a frail craft. One complete upset chilled me most thoroughly, as the water was about down to freezing point. At one place, where we tried to push on all night, we were tantalised by some most brilliant "Will-o'-the-wisp" lights, which our experienced Indians thought were decoy signals put out by wicked Indians to bewilder or injure us. Canoe travelling on this great lake is risky business. The storms come up with surprising rapidity, and ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... true that Allan made a phrase with a withered wisp of humanity like young Wilson. Not that he failed to see through him, for he christened him "a dried washing-clout." But Allan, like most great-hearted Scots far from their native place, saw it through a veil of sentiment; harsher features ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... I can for him," she explained, as Rorie watched her with an amused smile; "I'd wisp him down ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... fellow!" she whispered to herself, as she dabbed at her eyes with a wisp of a lace ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of the cliff puffed a cloud of dust. A thudding report boomed over the water. Just a wisp of whitish-grey smoke arose, and beneath it the great rock, with a gapping seam across its top, rolled majestically outward, sending a shower of spray on all sides, and opening to their eager view a black chasm into the heart of the headland. The experiment had worked out ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in spite of his mother and his uncle, he could not rouse in himself any enthusiasm? True, he liked little he knew of the Empire and its men, except this poor lamed conscript; but always in his whirling thoughts there was that will-o'-the-wisp, that wavering star of hope that Helene's father had seemed to offer him. Could he forsake, for any other reason, the sight of the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... a very bewildering thing—and thoughts do sometimes play the very will-o'-the-wisp with one. And when somebody you know is at a party, there is a funny inclination to go through the motions at least, and be up as late as anybody else. So it was with a somewhat sudden recollection that Mr. Rollo bethought him of what his watch might say. Just then ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... Their shoes are a curiosity: the hoofs are not shod with iron, but with straw sandals, tied on thrice or oftener daily. Grass is scarce in Japan, and oats are unknown. The nags live on beans, barley, and the stalks, leaves and tops of succulent plants, with only an occasional wisp ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... weeping; so that his country, yellow at best, and frightened by the fear of being done to as it had done by Serbia, quit abruptly, without shame, almost without firing a shot. With that defection the last wisp of Germany's long cherished dream of a boche Middle-Europe and a boche empire stretching from Berlin to Bagdad, faded forever. In October, 1918, Austria consented to a reconstituted independent Bohemian state, and with apparent readiness ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Harramy, which signifies the Child is coming. It concluded with the representation of a woman in labour, acted by a set of great brawny fellows, one of whom at last brought forth a strapping boy, about six feet high, who ran about the stage, dragging after him a large wisp of straw which hung by a string from his middle. I had an opportunity of seeing this acted another time, when I observed, that the moment they had got hold of the fellow who represented the child, they flattened or pressed his nose. From this I judged, that they do so by their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... always been to see a Will-o'-the-wisp, and I am still hoping; but that hot summer, had I known it at the time, they were quite common within an easy walk of my house in the New Forest. There was some correspondence on the subject in The Observer, and the following is extracted ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... imprudence. She bade me remember that I really even know not who she was—what were her prospects, her connections, her standing in society. She begged me, but with a sigh, to reconsider my proposal, and termed my love an infatuation—a will o' the wisp—a fancy or fantasy of the moment—a baseless and unstable creation rather of the imagination than of the heart. These things she uttered as the shadows of the sweet twilight gathered darkly and more darkly around us—and then, with a gentle pressure of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... except squirrels—whom he hates—with what seems an affectionate interest, though at times his eyes will twinkle with pleasure as he remembers how he made hedgehogs unroll themselves when he was a boy, by putting a wisp of ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... He loved a will-o'-the-wisp; he had married a butterfly. Why continue to play the martyr and follow the fruitless path of rectitude? Hadn't she said, "I can only live once, and so I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go?" He could only live once, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... head and drank as audibly and nearly as much as a horse. Then holding his hands to receive the remaining contents of the pitcher, which his followers poured into his monstrous palms, he soused his face, which he afterwards wiped in a wisp of grass—the only towel of Jack's which was ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the soft, yielding body beneath its wisp of garment, and he swung her behind him as he set himself to meet the attack. And he flashed her a look that must have carried a message, for the trembling lips were framing a ghost of a smile as ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of the Hotel Metropole at Brighton. Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near the window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a snowy-white tablecloth with a shining centre dish of foppish little cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank of mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it seemed, there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its soothing mass of colour broken only by a few white leaning sails upon the furthest horizon. Along ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... the production of which he spent the better part of his life, greatly outweigh his novel both in aesthetic and historical importance. To attempt to estimate Lyly's position as a novelist and as a prose writer is to chase the will-o'-the-wisp of theory over the morass of uncertainty; the task of investigating his comedies is altogether simpler and more straightforward. After groping our way through the undergrowth of minor literature, we come out upon the great highway of Elizabethan art—the drama. Let us first ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... entered Jervis Whitney's mind that so fantastic a thing as a pair of red moccasins was to be found in the Old Dominion, or anywhere else outside of a monkey show, though he might search the world, with a will-o'-the-wisp, from Big Bone Lick to the Land of Nod. So, in saying, "let me but find them, and you shall have them," he thought he was hazarding his word no more than were he to say: "Let the man in the moon but give me the moon, and the moon, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... leaving the fur posts for the St. Lawrence. Frosts had already stripped the trees of foliage, and winter would presently lock all avenues of retreat in six months' ice. La Verendrye's men began to doubt the wisdom of chasing a will-o'-the-wisp to an unknown Western Sea. The explorer sent half the party forward with his nephew Jemmeraie and his son Jean, while he himself remained at Kaministiquia with the mutineers to forage for provisions. {208} Winter found Jemmeraie's men on ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... as he strode on through the park of Luckenough, "to fancy that any one with eyes, heart and brain, could possibly fall in love with the 'Will-o'-the-wisp' Jacquelina, or worse, that giglet, Angelica; when he sees Marian! Marian, whose least sunny tress is dearer to me than are all the living creatures in the world besides. Marian, for whose possession ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... parish;—but yet living through his griefs, and bearing them patiently, 'for sufferance is the badge of all his tribe;'—and even seeming to find, in an occasional full meal, or a gleam of sunshine, or a wisp of dry straw on which to repose his sorry carcase, some comfort in ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... occupant of that cozy room. She was reclining, eyes closed and hands folded, on a pillowed settee, where the glow of a shaded lamp fell softly upon her, and David thought her the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A very wisp of a woman she was; he could have held her in his arms and scarcely felt the weight. But he would have taken her very tenderly, so fragile she seemed. Under a filmy lace cap her hair, still fine and plentiful, shone silvery. The face, though ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... which are arranged sundry very commonplace objects, each bearing a numbered ticket. On close examination he finds that the numbers correspond with those in the catalogue, and that No. 1, "Horse Fair"—fare—is represented after a realistic fashion by a handful of oats and a wisp of hay. No. 2, which he expected to find a spirited marine sketch, is in reality only a toothbrush lying beside a jack-plane; while the supposed companion picture, "Caught in a Squall Off Yarmouth," is represented by a ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... far to the north from our direct course, led astray in the dark, and by our desire to advance swiftly. For there soon came to us warning signs that we were indeed being pursued; and some evidence also that we were even within Indian territory. Once we beheld from an eminence the wisp of a camp fire far in our rear, a mere misty curl of smoke showing against the distant blue of the sky. And once, from out the shadow of a grove, we stared perplexed across a wide valley, to where appeared a dim outline of bluffs, and watched a party ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... cattle would feed, and pictured it cluttered with gold-hunters, greedy, undesirable interlopers doomed to disappointment in the long run. Ward had seen the gold fever sweep through a community and spoil life for the weak ones who took to chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of sudden wealth. Tramps of the pick-and-pan brigade—they should not come swarming into these hills on any wild-goose chase, if he could help it. And he could and should. This was not, properly speaking, a gold country. He knew it. The rock formations did not point to any great deposit of the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... phosphorus set on fire yields copious smoke, but it would be apt to make people cough, and, besides, phosphorus is a dangerous thing to handle incautiously, and I do not want to suggest anything which might be productive of disaster if the experiment was repeated at home. A little wisp of hay, slightly damped and lighted, will safely yield a sufficient supply, and you need not have an elaborate box like this; any kind of old packing-case, or even a bandbox with a duster stretched across its open top and a ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... some centuries; it may vanish to-morrow. A German revolution may destroy it; a small group of lunacy commissioners may fold it up and put it away. But should it go, it would at least take with it nearly every crown between Hamburg and Constantinople. The German kings would vanish like a wisp of smoke. Suppose a German revolution and a correlated step forward towards liberal institutions on the part of Russia, then the whole stage of Eastern Europe would clear as fever goes out of a man. This age of international elbowing and jostling, of intrigue ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... poured forth my lamentations and self-accusations to our Blessed Father, who said: "What a masterful spirit you have! You want to walk upon the wings of the wind. You let yourself be carried away by your zeal, which, like a will-of-the-wisp, will surely lead you over a precipice. Have you forgotten the warning of your patron, St. Peter, not to think you can walk in burning heat?[4] Would you do more than God, and restrain the liberty of the creatures ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... treating the singular shoulders of Charles-Norton. He was sitting beneath the glow of the evening lamp, his coat off, his shirt pulled down to his elbows; and she, standing behind the chair, was leaning solicitously over him. A wisp of her hair caressed his right ear, but somehow did not relax his temper. "Well, let them alone, Dolly," he growled; "let them alone. Good Lord, let ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Episcopalian party into a Royalist party, and placed at its head the Covenanter, Montrose. On the other hand, the National Covenant was transformed into the Solemn League and Covenant, which had for its aim the establishment of Presbytery in England as well as in Scotland. This "will o' the wisp" of covenanted uniformity led the Scottish Church into somewhat strange places. As early as January, 1643, Montrose had offered to strike a blow for the king in Scotland, but Charles would not take the responsibility of beginning the strife. In August ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... I went into the poets' favourite "Will o' the Wisp" tea shop once and found the gas-jet lighted! The young girl in charge jumped up, much embarrassed, ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... him, her face curiously blank, as though to say, 'Why are you so cruel?' He offered her the wisp of paper. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... would be the use? It were a sin to let you set off alone in pursuit of the foolish girl, and my old legs would never overtake such a Will-with-the-wisp—even if we could guess which way she ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... whole manner changed. He was no longer the dignified host conducting the feast with measured grace. With a spring in his voice and a certain unrestrained joyousness, he called to Chad to bring him a light for his first lamplighter. Then, with the paper wisp balanced in his hand, he began counting the several candles, peeping into the branches with the manner of ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a man to unravel that nest, wisp by wisp, and resolve it into a loose pile of materials? Certainly not less than an entire day. Do you think that even your skilful fingers,— unassisted by needles,—could in two days, or in three, weave of those same materials ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... She was touching her fringe, giving little pats and pulls to her dress, preparatory to descent, and Sophia whispered, 'Just see, Caroline, that wisp of hair near my ear—so tiresome! I can ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... bit without trying to get a whole philosophy into the work," anchored him to the heaviest tasks as if he were a true- born plodder, while the "wild Irishman" with dreams and desires lighted the way with gleams of Will-o'-the-Wisp. The quicksilver in the veins of the patient Mercutio of railroad rates and demurrage charges lightened his work for himself and others. Just as in the five years when he served San Francisco, as City and County Attorney, he labored ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Cortina is a gentleman and a scholar, a man of vast information, and a protector of the fine arts. His conversation is a series of electric sparks; brilliant as an ignis fatuus, and bewildering as a will-o'-the-wisp. I have seldom heard such eloquence even in trifles; and he writes with as much ease as he speaks. We have seen three clever pieces of his lately, showing his versatile genius; one upon earthquakes, one upon the devil, and one upon the holy fathers of the church!—the first in the form ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... history, and you have as your allowance for the year L200—a sum which is insufficient to pay the Dutch teacher employed to bring the children up to the required standard in that language. It is small wonder, then, that most teachers prefer to dispense with this Will-o'-the-wisp grant altogether, seeing that the efforts of some to earn it have resulted in pecuniary loss. The actual sum expended on Uitlander schools last year amounted to L650, or 1s. 10d. a head out of a total expenditure for education of L63,000, the expenditure per ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Sandford affected this neighbourhood, to be near the theatres. Lady Davenant here presided over the Dorset Gardens Company; Shadwell, "round as a butt and liquored every chink," nightly reeled home to the same precinct, unsteadily following the guidance of a will-o'-the-wisp link-boy; and in the square lived and died Sir John King, the Duke of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep. Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral bars and eyed the ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... Go and wring them, Yenadizze! Go and dry them in the sunshine!" Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind Rose, but made no angry answer; From the lodge went forth in silence, Took the nets, that hung together, Dripping, freezing at the doorway; Like a wisp of straw he wrung them, Like a wisp of straw he broke them, Could not wring them without breaking, Such the strength was in his fingers. "Lazy Kwasind!" said his father, "In the hunt you never help me; Every ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... her into his arms, holding her hard pressed against the throbbing of his heart. "You wisp of thistledown!" he said. "You feather! How have you managed to set me on fire like this? I think of nothing but you—the fairy wonder of you—day and night. If you were to slip out of my reach now, I believe I should ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the canoe free. He succeeded in doing this, but not as he expected, for his weight and the weight of the water as it swept along crumpled up the canoe and suddenly he found himself rushing down the rapids just like a wisp of straw on a miniature stream such as little boys sometimes make in the gutters. All at once he felt Bill's body bump him and instinctively he grabbed it and though bruised in a hundred places, he finally shot ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... their appearance. They all had at their backs large baskets bound by withes passing across the forehead and chest. They were but lightly clothed. A small poncho covered their shoulders, and the usual cloth and kilt was worn round the loins, a wisp of leaves preventing their backs being chafed by their burdens. Each man also carried a long staff in his hand, and a bag of roasted corn as provision for the journey. The burdens were soon adjusted. One of them ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Pacific was also an uncertain quantity. Escalante believed a better road existed to Monterey by way of the north than by the middle route, and a further incentive to journey that way was probably the rumours of large towns in that direction, the same will-o'-the-wisp the Spaniards for nearly three centuries had been vainly pursuing. The authorities had urged two expeditions to Alta California, to establish communication; Garces and Captain Anza had carried out one, and now Escalante was ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... thin girl, with a flat dirty face, that would have been pale, if it had not been burnt to a yellowish brown with the sun, till it was only a shade lighter than the old battered straw hat that had let a wisp or two of yellow hair through a great slit in the back just above the brim. She wore a tattered cotton frock that had nearly all the pattern washed out, which must have been a long time before, because ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... meadows, the will-of-the-wisp has undoubtedly been seen, as well as in a wet field in the central part of the parish; but it is a disappointing phenomenon—nothing but a misty, pale bluish light, rather like the reality of a comet's tail, and if ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... writing-desk in a corner of the room he takes a pile of manuscript, and weary as he is, adds several pages to it. The dream of his boyhood has grown with him—that delightful dream of authorship! How this will-o'-the-wisp of the brain entices one into mental fogs! How it coaxes and pets one, cheats and ruins one! And so that appalling pile of closely-written manuscript is Mortimer's romance? Wasted hours and wasted thought—who ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... absolutely bare of any ornament at all. And on her hair was not a star, but a great yellow moonstone, that shone with a dull glimmer like a rival moon of her own, and over her left shoulder a long coil of dark hair came out from behind her head and hung down like a serpent, ending in a soft wisp like a yak's tail that was tied round with yellow silk. And the only thing that she retained of what she was before was the intoxicating charm of the upright poise of her whole figure, which seemed to say to me as I saw it: I am the one thing ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... for home. He passes H. Henriksen's establishment and decides to drop in a moment. The son of the house, a young man in a business suit of cheviot, is still busy at his desk. His eyes are large and blue, although his complexion is rather dark otherwise; a stray wisp of hair sags untidily over his forehead. The tall, somewhat gaunt and taciturn fellow looks about thirty years old. His comrades value him highly because he helps them a good deal with money and articles of commerce from ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... each other on the crowded footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of uncomfortable sprinklings; when gutters brawled and waterspouts were full and noisy; when the wet from the projecting stones and ledges of the church fell drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw on which he stood mere mud in no time; those were the days that tried him. Then, indeed, you might see Toby looking anxiously out from his shelter in an angle of the church wall—such a meagre shelter that in summer time it never cast a shadow thicker than a good- sized walking ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... work is unique among operatic overtures, as it has a chorus behind the curtain interwoven with it. It is a picture of the opera itself, and contains a will-o'-the-wisp passage, a rustic song with accompaniment of goat-bells, a storm, and in the midst of the storm a chant to the Virgin, sung by the unseen chorus, and then a Pilgrimage march, the whole being in the nature of a retrospect. The curtain rises ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... Cuchillo," cried the servant; then, in a low voice, to Baraja, "Let the travellers take care when the will-o'-the-wisp dances on the plain!" ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... worked in their shirts with their faithful Senegalese to strengthen the entrenchments, and busily prepared for a desperate struggle. On the other side little activity was noticeable. The Egyptian garrison, although under arms, kept out of sight, but a wisp of steam above the funnels of the redoubtable gunboats showed that all ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... of a night for a ghost story," said Melissa, her eyes going over the group with a strange, sweet compassion in their depths. "The wind ought to be howling with blood-curdling glee and the will-o'-the-wisp ought to be a-hoppin' in the swamp. There ought to be a graveyard close by—and some skeletons standing just outside the winders, trying to look in upon ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... Just in the nick of time the ladder was run out, and Mr Sparks tripping over it, fell violently to the ground. He sprang up and gave chase, of course, but he might as well have followed a will-o'-the-wisp. The young scamps, doubling like hares, took refuge in a dark recess under a stair with which they were well acquainted, and from that position they watched their enemy. They heard him go growling past; knew, a moment or two later, from ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... policeman, strolling by on his beat, appeared as wan and spectral as the bare boughs of the poplar trees beneath which he moved. The wind was still blowing over the brow of the hill, and now and then it tossed a wisp of straw or a handful of dust on the porch where Gabriella was standing. As it swept onward it drove a flock of shadows, like black birds, up the open street into the clear space under the old-fashioned gas lamp at the corner. All the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... to be independent, and yet made no pretence to gentility. You dropped in quite unexpectedly and informally after a pleasant stroll about the fields with a double-barrel, untrammelled by any attendant. The dogs were all over cleavers sticking to their coats, and your boots had to be wiped with a wisp of straw; your pocket was heavy with a couple of rabbits or a hare, and your hands black enough from powder and handling gates and stiles. But they made you feel immediately that such trifles were not ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... beautiful staircases by myself—the lift was not working. The descent was painful and I felt hot and tired when I reached the ground floor, it was quite dusk then, and the one light had not yet been lit. A slight wisp of a figure passed along the end of the corridor. I could not see plainly, but I could have sworn it was Miss Sharp—I called her name—but no one answered me so I went on out,—the servant, aged ninety, now joining me, ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... kind of work-basket bull-dog, diminutive in size, dyspeptic in temper, disagreeable to contemplate, and distressing to be obliged to admire. One of the missions in society of Skye Terrier—who, when going before a high wind, bears no unapt resemblance to a mop or a wisp of tow—was to mop up Pug, and polish him off the hearth-rug of Fashion; a mission which he appears to have at least partially accomplished. For now the black muzzle of Pug is but seldom to be seen protruded from carriage-window, biding his time ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager note of these facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, after the fashion of most critical travellers, of the hideous contrast of his own long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff half-clerical brown straw hat, his wisp of gingham necktie, his dusty boots, his outrageous carpet-bag, and his straggling goat-like beard. A few looked at him in grave, discreet wonder. Whether they recognized in him the advent of a civilization that was destined to supplant their own ignorant, sensuous, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... of my coat I had the lace handkerchief which I had stolen on the night of the ball. As Dick questioned Carmona, and Carmona answered, I flashed out the wisp of lace and passed it across my lips, not turning to look full at the slim, grey-coated figure on the front seat, yet conscious by a side glance that a veiled ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... never fades, either, all the while Helma is puttin' away a pot of chocolate, a club sandwich, and an order of toasted muffins and marmalade. She just lets them big eyes of hers travel up and down, from Vee's smooth-fittin' gloves to the little wisp of straw-colored hair that curls up over the side of her fur hat. You couldn't blame Helma. I took a peek now ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... put up for us. The ring was made on rice chaff and earth. The wrestlers squatted in two parties at opposite sides of the ring. They did not wear the straw girdles of the professionals. Each man had a wisp of cotton cloth tied round his waist and between his legs. One of the best things about the wrestling was the formal introduction of the competitors. A weazened little man with a tucked-up cotton kimono and bare legs, but with the address ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... made a flaring torch of a little wisp of dry grass. Loving a good horse as he did, he felt a sudden and utterly new sort of hatred of Blenham go rushing ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... that inhabits the elder tree, the nightmare, or, as we call it, Maren. There is also the tradition of gigantic dragons or serpents, called by us Lindorm, in which your story of St. George and the dragon prominently figures. There are also minor superstitions of the will-o'-the-wisp, the bird called in English the ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... disposed to assist the constituted authorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to that retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of this commission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a flaming wisp of paper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of a dark sleep and embrace them warmly, the moment they passed the lintels of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... thought fit not to carry gas-pipes higher than the first floor. A large but old bedstead filled half the floor space. On the shabby dressing-table a pile of bills and various papers lay near the lamp. Clothes were hung behind the door, and a vague wisp of muslin moved slightly in the warm draught from the tiny open window. There were two small cane-chairs, enamelled, on which the women sat, close to each other, both incommoded by the unwholesome sultriness of the only chamber that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Great Tyee was but a wisp of a girl, but all the world was young in those days; even the Fraser River was young and small, not the mighty water it is today; but the pink salmon crowded its throat just as they do now, and the tillicums caught and ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... could extract nothing; the squire, looking as black as thunder in his study at Hazeldean; his mother trying to plead for him, and getting herself properly scolded for her pains; and then off went that Will-o'-the-wisp which pretended to call itself Thought, and began playing round the pale, charming face of Beatrice di Negra, in the drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small elfin voice, Randal Leslie's assurance of the preceding day, "as to her affection ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... apology for a pinery, and two or three little attempts of that sort without any pretension, they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of cambric for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him, and a pair of trousers that were too spare; and mention being made of the Opera by Mrs Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn't afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... you home, you merry lads! Tell your mammies and your dads, And all those that news desire, How you saw a walking fire. Wenches, that do smile and lisp Use to call me Willy Wisp. If that you but weary he, It is sport alone for me. Away: unto your houses go And I'll ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... avoided. The benefit derived from the inhalation of steam is considerable. This is effected by holding the horse's head over a bucketful of boiling water, so that the animal will be compelled to inhale steam with every inhalation of air. Stirring the hot water with a wisp of hay causes the steam to arise in greater abundance. One may cause the horse to put his nose in a bag containing cut hay upon which hot water has been poured, the bottom of the bag being stood ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... quantities averaging three quarts at a meal, but gradually increasing to four quarts as the calf grows older. Toward the end of the second month, beside the usual quantity given at each meal—composed of three parts of the infusion and one of milk—a small wisp or bundle of hay is to be laid before the calf, which will gradually come to eat it; but, if the weather is favorable, as in the month of May, the beast may be turned out to graze in a fine, sweet pasture, well ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... "it doesn't need much conjuration to tell that. Food and lodging for ourselves, to be sure; and a wisp of hay and tether for our horses. —Hospitality in short; and that's what no true Tennessee man, bred and born, ever refused yet. No, not even to an enemy, such a ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... sea- birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... man," I said to myself. I felt humble compared with him, an insignificant wisp of a thing, who could never do anything brave or great in life; and so I was proud to be called his "pal." When he asked if I, too, didn't need some cordial, I only laughed, and said I had just ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Bill," retorted Leonard Price, a parchment-colored wisp of nineteen who had recently become ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... himself again that last look of her face: its beauty, its strength, its sweet sympathy. He seemed to see the stray wisp of hair that had found its way down upon her cheek. Her perfect lips—how well he remembered!—were the unopened ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... to myself the monster had pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and chosen young green shoots, and buds, and leaves—and he shall have a collar of gold with golden bells, and reins of silk, and hanging silken tassels, and he shall——" and then Moussa Isa gave a hoarse scream and pointed to the sky-line above which rose a wisp ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times abreast, and then in single file, or disorderly, round and round they went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more flexibility in their motions than if they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... these circumstances, her conduct was somewhat erratic. For three days, perhaps, she would fly to the door at her husband's ring, and hang upon his every movement. Then, for the next three, she would be a veritable will-o'-the-wisp for elusiveness, caring, apparently, not one whit whether her husband came or went until poor Bertram, at his wit's end, scourged himself with a merciless catechism as to what he had done to vex her. Then, perhaps, just when ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... trooped into the corridor and grouped round the door of Mary's compartment. There was a wisp of a woman with neat features and sallow complexion, who looked the essence of respectability combined with a small, tidy intelligence. She was in brown from head to foot, and her hair was brown, too, where it was not ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying, "Here's a dead mongoose. Let's ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... am ashamed to say that hardly a wisp of fodder does the place contain. But how can I get fodder? My lands are small, and the peasantry lazy fellows who hate work and think of nothing but the tavern. In the end, therefore, I shall be forced to go and spend my old age in roaming about ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... be supposed, under such conditions, the straw is not very inviting. It soon becomes verminous, and this deplorable state of affairs becomes worse the longer the straw is in use. In fact it becomes alive with lice. In one instance I saw a dropped wisp so thickly encrusted with the parasites that it actually moved along the ground under the united action of ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney |
